Pan American World Airways

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Pan American World Airways
IATA PA	ICAO PAA	Callsign CLIPPER
Founded		March 14, 1927 (as Pan American Airways)
Ceased operations		December 4, 1991
Hubs		Miami International Airport John F. Kennedy International Airport Frankfurt International Airport London Heathrow Airport Tokyo International Airport (after 1978, Narita International Airport)
Focus cities		Washington Dulles International Airport Logan International Airport (Boston) Los Angeles International Airport O'Hare International Airport (Chicago) Berlin-Tegel International Airport Honolulu International Airport Houston Intercontinental Airport San Francisco International Airport
Frequent flyer program		WorldPass
Member lounge		Clipper Club
Fleet size		226 (Airbus A300, A310; Boeing 727, 737, 747)
Destinations		All six major continents at its peak in the 1960s
Parent company		Pan Am Corporation
Company slogan		“The System of the Flying Clippers” (1946-1953) "The World's Most Experienced Airline" (1953-early 1970s) “Experience makes the difference”/"Pan Am makes the going great." (early 1970s) “America's airline to the world” (late 1970s) “You can't beat the experience” (1980s) “Die Flügel Berlins” (1980s, only in Germany)
Headquarters		New York City, New York
Key people		Juan T. Trippe (CEO 1927–1968) Harold Gray (CEO 1968–1969) Najeeb Halaby (CEO 1969–1971) William T. Seawell (CEO 1971–1981) C. Edward Acker (CEO 1981–1988) Thomas G. Plaskett (CEO 1988–1991) Russell L. Ray, Jr. (CEO 1991)
Website: Pan Am Historical Foundation

Pan American World Airways, commonly known as Pan Am, was the principal international airline of the United States from the 1930s until its collapse on December 4, 1991. Founded as a seaplane service out of Key West, Florida, the airline became a major company credited with many innovations that shaped the international airline industry, including the widespread use of jet aircraft, jumbo jets, and computerized reservation systems. Identified by its blue globe logo (widely known as "the blue ball")^[1] and the use of the word "Clipper" in aircraft names and call signs, the airline was a cultural icon of the 20th century, and the unofficial flag carrier of the United States.^[2]

The Pan Am brand was resurrected four times after 1991, although the reincarnations were related to the original Pan Am in name only. The first operated from 1996 to 1998, with a focus on low-cost, long-distance flights between the U.S. and the Caribbean with the IATA airline designator PN. The second was unrelated to the first and was a small regional carrier based in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, that operated between 1998 and 2004. It used the IATA code PA, and the ICAO code PAA. Boston-Maine Airways, a sister company of the second reincarnation, operated the "Pan Am Clipper Connection" brand from 2004 to February 2008. Since 2006, the Pan Am brand, colors, and logos have been used by Pan Am Railways, a regional railroad operating in northern New England. The second reincarnation of Pan American Airways, Boston-Maine Airways, and Pan Am Railways were owned by Pan Am Systems.

[edit] History

[edit] Formation

Juan Trippe surveying his office globe.

Pan American Airways Incorporated was founded on March 14, 1927, by Major Henry H. "Hap" Arnold and partners. Their shell company was able to obtain the U.S. mail delivery contract to Cuba, but lacked the physical assets to do the job. On June 2, 1927, Juan Trippe formed the Aviation Corporation of America with the backing of powerful and politically-connected financiers which included William A. Rockefeller and Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney. Their operation had the all-important landing rights for Havana, having acquired a small airline established in 1926 by John K. Montgomery and Richard B. Bevier as a seaplane service from Key West, Florida to Havana, and carried mail over the route for the first time on October 19, 1927.

Flown cover carried from Key West, FL, to Havana, Cuba, on the first contract air mail flight operated by Pan American Airways, Oct 19, 1927 (Signed by pilot Cy Caldwell)

The Atlantic, Gulf, and Caribbean Airways company was established on October 11, 1927, by New York City investment banker Richard Hoyt, who served as president. The three companies merged into a holding company called the Aviation Corporation of the Americas on June 23, 1928. Richard Hoyt was named as chairman of the new company, but Trippe and his partners held forty percent of the equity and Whitney was made president. Trippe became the operational head of the new Pan American Airways Incorporated, created as the primary operating subsidiary of Aviation Corporation of the Americas.^[3]

The U.S. government had approved the original Pan Am's mail delivery contract with little objection, out of fears that the German-owned Colombian carrier SCADTA (currently Avianca) would have no competition in bidding for routes between Latin America and the United States. The government further helped Pan Am by insulating it from its American competitors, seeing the airline as the "chosen instrument" for U.S. foreign air routes.^[4] The airline expanded internationally, benefiting from a virtual monopoly on foreign routes.^[5]

A sign hangs on the original office in Key West, Florida

Trippe and his associates planned to extend Pan Am's network through all of Central and South America. During the late 1920s and early 1930s, Pan Am purchased a number of ailing or defunct airlines in Central and South America, and negotiated with postal officials to win most of the government's airmail contracts to the region. In September 1929, Trippe toured Latin America with Charles Lindbergh to negotiate landing rights in a number of countries, including SCADTA's home turf of Colombia. By the end of the year, Pan Am offered flights down the west coast of South America to Peru. The following year, Pan Am purchased the New York, Rio, and Buenos Aires Line (NYRBA), giving it a seaplane route along the east coast of South America to Buenos Aires, Argentina, and westbound to Santiago, Chile, and renaming it Panair do Brasil.^[6] Pan Am also partnered with Grace Shipping Company in 1929 to form Pan American-Grace Airways, better known as Panagra, to gain a foothold to destinations in South America.^[3]

Pan Am's holding company, the Aviation Corporation of the Americas, was one of the hottest stocks on the New York Curb Exchange in 1929, and flurries of speculation surrounded each of its new route awards. On a single day in March, its stock rose 50% in value. In April 1929, Trippe and his associates reached an agreement with United Aircraft and Transport Corporation (UATC) to segregate Pan Am operations to south of the U.S.-Mexico border, in exchange for UATC taking a large shareholder stake (UATC was the parent company of what are now Boeing, Pratt & Whitney, and United Airlines).^[7][8]

[edit] Pan Am and its Flight Crews

The Sikorsky S-42 was one of Pan Am's earlier flying boats and was used to survey the San Francisco-China route.

Critical to Pan Am's success as an airline was the proficiency of its flight crews, who were rigorously trained in long-distance flight, seaplane anchorage and berthing operations, over-water navigation, radio procedure, aircraft repair, and marine tides. During the day, use of the compass while judging drift from sea currents was normal procedure; at night, all flight crews were trained to use astral navigation. In bad weather, pilots used dead reckoning and timed turns, making successful landings at fogged-in harbors by landing out to sea, then taxiing the plane into port. By the time a man became pilot at Pan Am, he had first gained years of practical experience, not only in flying seaplanes, but in anchoring, sea tides, engine repair, astral, radio, and dead-reckoning navigation. Many had merchant marine certifications and radio licenses as well as pilot certificates. A Pan Am flight captain would normally begin his career years earlier as a radio operator or even mechanic, steadily gaining his licenses and working his way up the flight crew roster to navigator, second officer, and first officer. Before the war, it was not unusual to see a Pan Am first officer or captain changing a cylinder head or other engine part while the plane rocked at a floating berth in a remote anchorage.^[9]

Pan Am's mechanics and support staff were similarly trained. Newly hired applicants were frequently paired with experienced flight mechanics in several areas of the company until they had achieved proficiency in all aircraft types. Emphasis was placed on learning to maintain and overhaul aircraft in harsh seaborne environments when faced with logistical difficulties, as might be expected in a small foreign port without an aviation infrastructure or even an adequate road network. Many crews supported repair operations by flying in spare parts to planes stranded overseas, in some cases performing repairs themselves.^[9]

[edit] The Clipper Era

PAA's "Clipper" routes in "The Americas"(1936)

1941 advertising mailer for Pan Am's "Flying Clipper Cruises" to South America

Pan Am's flying boat terminal at Dinner Key in Miami, Florida, was a hub of inter-American travel during the 1930s and 1940s.

While Pan Am was developing its South American network, it also negotiated with Bernt Balchen, of the Norwegian airline DNL, in 1937 for a co-operative Trans-Atlantic flight to Europe. The agreement was for Pan Am to use its Clippers on flights from New York to Reykjavík, Iceland; DNL would then take over with their Sikorsky S-43 aircraft onwards to Bergen, Norway. This idea was dropped when Pan Am pulled out and instead turned to Britain and France to begin seaplane service between the United States and Europe. Britain's state-owned Imperial Airways was eager to cooperate with Pan Am, but France was less willing to help, because its state carrier Aéropostale was a major player in Latin America and a Pan Am competitor on some routes. Eventually, Pan Am reached an agreement with both countries to offer service from Norfolk, Virginia, to Europe via Bermuda and the Azores using Sikorsky S-40 flying boats. From June, 1937, a joint service from the U.S. mainland to Bermuda was inaugurated, with Pan Am using Sikorsky flying boats and Imperial Airways using C class flying boat RMA Cavalier.^[10]

On July 5, 1937, the first commercial survey flights across the North Atlantic were conducted.^[11] The Pan Am Clipper III, a Sikorsky S-42, landed at Botwood in the Bay of Exploits in Newfoundland and Labrador fromPort Washington, New York, via Shediac, New Brunswick. The next day Pan Am Clipper III left Botwood forFoynes in Ireland. The same day a Short Empire C-Class flying boat, the Caledonia left Foynes for Botwood and landed July 6, 1937, reaching Montreal on July 8 and New York on July 9. These test flights marked the first steps toward the beginning of commercial transatlantic flights.^[11]

PAA's China Clipper service cut the time of a transpacific crossing from as much as six weeks by sea to just six days by air.

Pan Am planned to start land plane service over Alaska to Japan and China, and sent Lindbergh on a survey flight in 1930; however, the ongoing political upheaval in the Soviet Union and Japan made the route nonviable. Trippe then decided to start a service from San Francisco to Honolulu, and from there to Hong Kong and Auckland following existing steamship routes. After negotiating rights in 1934 to land at Pearl Harbor, Midway Island, Wake Island, Guam, and Subic Bay (Manila), Pan Am shipped $500,000 worth of aeronautical equipment westward in March 1935 and ran its first survey flight to Honolulu in April with a Sikorsky S-42 flying boat. The airline won the contract for a San Francisco-Canton mail route later that year and operated its first commercial flight carrying mail and express in a Martin M-130 from Alameda to Manila to massive media fanfare on November 22, 1935. The five-leg, 8,000 mile flight arrived in the Philippine capital on November 29 and back in San Francisco on December 6 thereby cutting the time of travel over that by steamship by more than a full month. (Both the United States and Philippine Islands issued special stamps for the two flights.) The first passenger flight over this route left Alameda on October 21, 1936.^[12] The fare from San Francisco to both Manila and Hong Kong in 1937 was $950 one way and $1,710 round trip.^[13]

Stamps issued by the United States and Philippine Islands for Air Mail carried on the first flights in each direction of PAA's Transpacific "China Clipper" service between San Francisco, CA, and Manila, PI. (November 22 - December 6, 1935)

On August 6, 1937, Juan Trippe accepted U.S aviation's highest annual prize, the Collier Trophy, on behalf of PAA from President Franklin D. Roosevelt for the campany's "establishment of the transpacific airline and the successful execution of extended overwater navigation and the regular operations thereof."^[14] Later, Pan Am used Boeing 314 flying boats for the Pacific route: in China, passengers could connect to domestic flights on the Pan Am-operated China National Aviation Corporation(CNAC) network. Pan Am flew to Singapore for the first time in 1941, starting a semimonthly service which reduced San Francisco-Singapore travel times from 25 days to 6 days.^[15] The Boeing 314s were also used on transatlantic routes starting in 1939.^[5]

Flown cover carried around the world on PAA Boeing 314 Clippers and by Imperial Airways, June 24-July 28, 1939

A fleet of six large long range Boeing 314 flying boats was delivered to Pan Am in early 1939. The new type enabled commencement of a regular weekly transatlantic passenger and air mail service between the United States and Britain on June 24, 1939. The route was from New York via Shediac, Botwood, and Foynes to Southampton. The single fare was $375 — equivalent to $5,300 today. From the outbreak of World War II, the terminal became Foynes until the service ceased for the winter on October 5. Throughout the war, Pan Am flew over ninety million miles worldwide in support of military operations.^[5]

In 1940, Pan Am, along with TWA,and Northwest Airlines began using the Boeing 307Stratocruiser for passenger services. It was the first pressurized airliner to go into commercial service and the first to include a flight engineer as a member of the crew. The Boeing 307's airline service proved short-lived, as all five models built were commandeered for military service at the outbreak of World War II.^[16]

The "Clippers" — the name harking back to the 19th century clipper ships — were the only American passenger aircraft of the time capable of intercontinental travel. To compete with ocean liners, the airline offeredfirst-class seats on such flights, and the style of flight crews became more formal. Instead of being leather-jacketed, silk-scarved airmail pilots, the crews of the "Clippers" wore naval-style uniforms and adopted a set procession when boarding the aircraft.^[17] The China Clipperbecame well-known for its South Seas routings.^[18]However, during World War II most of the Clippers were pressed into the military, with Pan Am flight crews operating the aircraft under contract. During this era, Pan Am pioneered a new air route across western and central Africa to Iran, and in early 1942, the airline became the first to operate a route circumnavigating the globe. Another first was in January 1943, when Franklin Roosevelt became the first U.S. president to fly abroad, in the Dixie Clipper.^[19] It was also during this period that Star Trekcreator Gene Roddenberry was a Clipper pilot. He was aboard the Clipper Eclipse when it crashed inSyria on June 19, 1947.^[20]

[edit] Postwar developments

Pan Am Boeing 377 Stratocruiser Clipper Seven Seas at London Heathrow in 1954

After the war, Pan American's fleet was quickly replaced by faster and longer range airliners, such as the Boeing 377 Stratocruiser, Douglas DC-6B, and Lockheed Constellation. For almost 40 years, Pan Am Flight 001 ruled all westbound air travel with a flight that originated in San Francisco and stopped around the world. These stops included Honolulu, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Manila, Kolkata, Delhi, Beirut, Istanbul, Frankfurt, London, and finally New York. The westbound flight lasted 46 hours after its first take-off. Meanwhile, Pan Am Flight 002 circled the globe eastbound.^[21]

Although Pan Am lobbied intensively to enhance its position as America's major international airline, it encountered increasing competition — first from American Overseas Airlines, and later from a number of carriers designated to compete with Pan Am in certain markets, such as TWA to Europe, Braniff to South America, American Airlines and United Airlines for domestic flights, and Northwest Orient to East Asia.^[22] In 1950, shortly after starting an around-the-world service and developing the concept of "economy class" passenger service, Pan American Airways, Inc. was renamed Pan American World Airways, Inc.^[23]

The MetLife Building, formerly the Pan Am Building

With strong competition on many of its routes, Pan Am began investing in innovations such as jet and wide-body aircraft. Pan Am purchased the DC-8 and the Boeing 707, which Boeing modified to seat six passengers across instead of five under pressure from Pan Am. The airline inaugurated transatlantic jet service from New York to Paris on October 26, 1958, with a Boeing 707 named the Clipper America.^[24]

Pan Am was the launch customer of the Boeing 747, initially ordering 25 of them in April 1966.^[25] On January 15, 1970, First Lady Pat Nixon officially christened a Pan Am Boeing 747 at Washington Dulles International Airport in the presence of Pan Am chairman Najeeb Halaby. Rather than breaking a bottle of champagne, Mrs. Nixon pulled a lever which sprayed red, white, and blue water on the aircraft. During the next few days Pan Am flew several of their 747 jets to various major airports in the U.S. as part of a public relations effort, allowing the public to tour the airplanes. Pan Am then began operation of the first commercially scheduled 747 service on the evening of January 21, 1970, when Clipper Young America flew from New York to London. An engine failure caused a delayed departure of several hours on this first flight, resulting in a substitution to a second 747 which completed the route to London's Heathrow Airport.^[26]

Boeing 747-100 Clipper Neptune's Car (N742PA) at Zürich Airport

Pan Am was also one of the first three airlines to sign options for the Concorde, but like other airlines that took out options — with the exception of British Overseas Airways Corporation and Air France — it did not actually purchase the supersonic jet. Pan Am also was the first U.S. airline to sign for the Boeing 2707, the American supersonic transport project, with 15 delivery positions reserved;^[27] these aircraft never saw service after Congress voted against additional funding in 1971.^[28]

The Pan Am Worldport at JFK airport, once the center of the airline's New York operations, was sold to Delta Air Lines in 1991.

With traffic increasing in 1962, Pan Am commissioned IBM to build PANAMAC, a large computer that booked airline and hotel reservations. It also held large amounts of information about cities, countries, airports, aircraft, hotels, and restaurants. The computer came to occupy the fourth floor of the Pan Am Building, which was then under construction in midtown Manhattan and was to be the largest commercial office building in the world for some time.^[29] The airline also built Worldport, a terminal building at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York that was the world's largest airline terminal for many years. It was distinguished by its elliptical, four-acre (16,000 m²) roof, suspended far from the outside columns of the terminal below by 32 sets of steel posts and cables. The terminal was designed to allow passengers to board and disembark via stairs without getting wet by parking the nose of the aircraft under the overhang. The introduction of the jetbridge made this feature obsolete. Continuing the airline's tradition of bold architecture, Pan Am built a gilded training building in the style of Edward Durell Stone designed by Steward-Skinner Architects in Miami.^[30]

At its peak, Pan Am was providing scheduled service to every continent except for Antarctica. Many of its routes were between New York, Europe, and South America, and between Miami and the Caribbean. Starting in 1964, the airline was providing helicopter service between New York's major airports and Manhattan.^[31] Aside from the DC-8, the Boeing 707 and 747, the Pan Am jet fleet also included Boeing 720s, 727s (which replaced the 720s), 737s, and Boeing 747SPs, which allowed Pan Am to fly nonstop flights from New York to Tokyo. The airline also operated Lockheed L-1011s, DC-10s, and Airbus A300s and A310s. Pan Am was also involved in other businesses that included a hotel chain, the InterContinental Hotel, and a business jet, the Falcon. The airline was involved in creating a missile-tracking range in the South Atlantic, and in operating a nuclear-engine testing laboratory in Nevada.^[32]

The airline also participated in several notable humanitarian flights. Pan Am operated 650 flights a week between West Germany and West Berlin, first with the DC-6B and, in 1966, with the Boeing 727.^[33] Pan Am also flew R&R (Rest and Recreation) flights during the Vietnam War. These flights carried American service personnel for R&R leaves in Hong Kong, Tokyo, and other Asian cities.^[34]

At its height during the early 1970s, Pan Am's advertising made the airline well known for its trademark slogan, "World's Most Experienced Airline."^[35] At this time it was well regarded for its state-of-the-art aircraft and the destinations it served in as many as 160 nations.^[36] The airline was respected for the experience and professionalism of its crews; cabin staff were multilingual and usually college graduates, frequently with nursing training.^[37] During this period Pan Am's onboard service and cuisine, inspired by Maxim's de Paris, were delivered "with a personal flair that has rarely been equaled."^[38][39]

[edit] Downturn

The 1973 energy crisis significantly affected Pan Am's operational costs. In addition to high fuel prices, low demand for air travel and an oversupply in the international air travel market (partly caused by federal route awards to other airlines, such as the Transpacific Route Case) reduced the number of passengers Pan Am carried, as well as its profit margins. Like other major airlines, Pan Am had invested in a large fleet of new Boeing 747s with the expectation that demand for air travel would continue to rise, which was not the case.^[5]

A Pan Am flight attendant in 1970s uniform

On September 23, 1974, a group of Pan Am employees published an ad in the New York Times to register their disagreement over federal policies which they felt were harming the financial viability of their employer.^[40] The ad cited discrepancies in airport landing fees, such as Pan Am paying $4,200 to land a plane in Sydney, Australia, while the Australian carrier, Qantas, paid only $178 to land a jet in Los Angeles. The ad also contended that the U.S. Postal Service was paying foreign airlines five times as much to carry U.S. mail in comparison to Pan Am. Finally, the ad questioned why the Export-Import Bank of the United States loaned money to Japan, France, and Saudi Arabia at six percent interest while Pan Am paid twelve percent.^[41]

Since the 1930s, Juan Trippe coveted domestic routes for Pan Am, and throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s the airline attempted to merge with American Airlines, Eastern Airlines, and Trans World Airlines. The airline was repeatedly denied permission from the Civil Aeronautics Board to operate within the United States, and Pan Am remained as an American carrier operating international routes only. When the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 became law, it contained two clauses. "Clause A" allowed domestic carriers to begin operating on international routes while "Clause B" allowed Pan Am to operate domestically. Only "Clause A" was put into effect as the other airlines convinced Congress that Pan Am would monopolize all U.S. air routes, though the last time Pan Am was permitted to merge with another airline was in 1950 when Pan Am was permitted to purchase American Overseas Airlines from American Airlines. As a result, U.S. domestic airlines were now competing with Pan Am internationally.^[42][43]

In order to acquire domestic routes the airline, under Chairman William Seawell, set its eyes on National Airlines. Pan Am wound up in a bidding war with Frank Lorenzo, which greatly raised the price of National's stock. Nevertheless, Pan Am was finally granted permission to buy National in 1980 in what was described as the "Coup of the Decade." The acquisition of National Airlines at $400 million hurt the balance sheet at Pan Am, which was already suffering from its buying binge of its Boeing 747 aircraft fleet. Compounding the merger, the majority of employees from National were bitter about adapting to Pan Am's corporate culture. While the merger enabled Pan Am to post income of $4 billion in 1980 (from its pre-merger income of $2.5 billion a year earlier), the integration was poorly handled by Pan Am management. Although revenues increased by 62% from 1979 to 1980, fuel costs from the merger increased by 157% during a weak economic climate. Further "miscellaneous expenses" increased by 74%.^[44][45] As 1980 progressed and the airline's financial fortunes worsened, Seawell began selling several of Pan Am's assets. The first asset to be sold off was the airline's 50% interest in Falcon Jet Corporation in August. Later in November, Pan Am sold the Pan Am Building to the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company for $400 million. By September 1981, Pan Am sold off its Inter-Continental Hotel chain. Before this transaction closed, Seawell was replaced by C. Edward Acker, a former executive from Air Florida and Braniff International.^[46]

Clipper Spreeathen (N70724) at Zurich in 1985

Acker inherited an airline with incompatible fleets (Pan Am had L-1011s with Rolls-Royce engines while National used DC-10s with GE engines), incompatible route networks (National's operations concentrated on Florida), increased labor costs at National as a result of harmonizing pay scales with Pan Am, and incompatible corporate cultures. Given the airline's dire situation, Acker sold off Pan Am's entire Pacific Division (which consisted of 25% of Pan Am's entire route system) to United Airlines for $750 million. Acker also placed an order for new aircraft such as the Airbus A300, A310, and A320, although the A320s were never delivered. The airline then spent $100 million to purchase New York Air's shuttle service between Boston, New York City, and Washington, D.C. Nevertheless, the purchase of the re-named "Pan Am Shuttle" did not address the lack of a strong domestic route network. In 1986 Pan Am bought Ransome, a Pennsylvania-based commuter airline for $65 million. Pan Am renamed the airline "Pan Am Express." From the start Pan Am Express operated commuter routes from New York, Los Angeles and San Diego in the United States and Berlin in Germany. The commuter airline started Miami services during the following spring.^[47] However, the airline provided only an incremental feed to Pan Am's international route system, which was now focused on the Atlantic Division. Pan Am later sold aircraft to other companies and countries, including Tristar airplanes which ended up with the Royal Air Force.^[48]

Pan Am's iconic image also made it a target for terrorists. In an attempt to convince the public that the airline was safe to fly with and to address lapses in its own security, Pan Am created a security system called Alert Management Systems in 1986. The new system did little to improve security. This was further exacerbated by financial concerns, in which the airline decided to keep security at a minimum so as to not inconvenience its passengers and lose business during departure. The FAA fined Pan Am for nineteen security failures, out of the 236 that were detected amongst 29 airlines in December 1988.^[49]

The airline was exposed to be falling apart, following the 1986 hijacking of Pan Am Flight 73 in Pakistan, in which 20 passengers and crew were killed and 120 injured. Acker was replaced by Thomas G. Plaskett, a Continental and American Airlines executive, in January 1988. While a program to refurbish Pan Am Aircraft and improve its on-time performance began showing positive results (in fact, Pan Am's most profitable quarter ever was third quarter '88), on December 21, 1988, the terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 above Lockerbie, Scotland, resulted in 270 fatalities. Many travelers avoided booking on Pan Am as they had begun to associate the airline with danger; customer complaints of rude or unhelpful customer service rose as well. Faced with a $300 million lawsuit filed by more than 100 families of the PA103 victims, the airline subpoenaed records of six U.S. government agencies, including the CIA, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the State Department. Though the records suggested that the U.S. government was aware of warnings of a bombing and failed to pass the information to the airline, the families claimed that Pan Am was attempting to shift the blame.^[50]

In June 1989, Plaskett presented Northwest Airlines with a $2.7 billion takeover bid that was backed by Bankers Trust, Morgan Guaranty Trust, Citicorp and Prudential-Bache. The merger would produce annual savings of $240 million.^[51] Al Checchi presented Northwest's directors with a proposal that surpassed Pan Am's. The Gulf War, which began in August 1990, brought transatlantic air traffic to a trickle, and in October 23, 1990, Pan Am sold its profitable London Heathrow routes, arguably Pan Am's biggest international destination, to United Airlines. This left Pan Am with its only London flights being two daily flights to Gatwick. In late 1989, Pan Am also sold its IGS (Internal German System) routes to Berlin to Lufthansa, and in September 1990 the airline announced that it would eliminate 2,500 jobs (8.6% of its work force) by October of that year.^[52]

[edit] Bankruptcy

Clipper Miles Standish (N805PA), an Airbus A310

Pan Am was forced to declare bankruptcy on January 8, 1991. Delta Air Lines purchased the remaining profitable assets of Pan Am, including its remaining European routes and the Pan Am Worldport at John Fitzgerald Kennedy International Airport, and injected $100 million as a 45% owner of a reorganized, but smaller Pan Am serving the Caribbean, Central and South America from a hub in Miami. The airline's creditors would hold the other 55%. During that time, Pan Am began to relocate its offices to Miami. The new airline would have operated approximately 60 aircraft and generated about $1.2 billion in annual revenues with 7,500 employees.^[53] During this interim period, Pan Am continued to sustain heavy losses as Wall Street, the traveling public and even Delta became less confident in the reorganization plan. Revenue shortfalls materialized throughout October and November 1991. The Boston-New York LaGuardia-Washington National shuttle service was taken over by Delta in September 1991.^[54] Delta later obtained all of Pan Am's remaining transatlantic rights, except Miami to Paris and London, in November 1991. In October 1991, former Douglas Aircraft executive Russell Ray, Jr. was hired as Pan Am's new chairman and CEO.^[55]

Pan Am ceased operations on December 4, 1991, when Delta's CEO Ron Allen and other senior executives reached a decision to cut off its scheduled final payment due to Pan Am of $25 million the weekend after Thanksgiving. This was at a time when Pan Am's senior executives outlined a projected shortfall of between $100 and possibly $200 million, with the airline requiring a $25 million installment just to fly through the following week. On the evening of December 3, Pan Am's Creditors Committee advised U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Cornelius Blackshear that it was close to convincing an airline (TWA) to invest $15 million to keep Pan Am operating. However, the following morning a deal with TWA owner Carl Icahn could not be struck. Pan Am opened for business at 9:00 am and within the hour, Ray was forced to withdraw Pan Am's plan of reorganization and execute an immediate shut-down plan for Pan Am. Over 9,000 employees lost their jobs. As a result of this action, Delta was sued for more than $2.5 billion on December 9, 1991 by the Pan Am Creditors Committee.^[56] Shortly thereafter, a large group of former Pan Am employees also sued Delta. In December 1995, a U.S. federal judge ruled in favor of Delta, concluding that it was not liable for Pan Am's demise.^[57]

Clipper Spark of the Ocean (N735PA) in Pan Am's final "billboard" style livery

The airline's last scheduled flight was Pan Am Flight 436 from Bridgetown, Barbados, to Miami under the command of Captain Mark Pyle. The plane was a Boeing 727-200 named Clipper Goodwill with the registration N368PA. After serving only two months as Pan Am's CEO, Ray was replaced by Peter McHugh to supervise the sale of Pan Am's remaining assets by Pan Am's Creditor's Committee. Pan Am's last remaining hub at Miami International Airport was split during the following years between United Airlines and American Airlines, the latter airline took the "America's unofficial flag carrier" mantle from Pan Am. TWA's Carl Icahn purchased Pan Am Express at a court ordered bankruptcy auction for $13 million and promptly renamed it "Trans World Express." The Pan Am brand was sold to Charles Cobb, CEO of Cobb Partners and former United States Ambassador to the Republic of Iceland under President George H.W. Bush and Under Secretary of the US Department of Commerce under President Reagan. Cobb, along with Hanna-Frost partners invested in a new Pan American World Airways headed by veteran airline executive Martin R. Shugrue, Jr, a former Pan Am executive with 20 years of experience at the original carrier.^[58]

In his book, Pan Am: An Aviation Legend, Barnaby Conrad contends that the collapse of the original Pan Am was a combination of corporate mismanagement, government indifference to protecting its prime international carrier, and flawed regulatory policy.^[59] He cites an observation made by former Pan Am Vice President for External Affairs, Stanley Gewirtz:

"What could go wrong did. No one who followed Juan Trippe had the foresight to do something strongly positive … it was the most astonishing example of Murphy's law in extremis. The sale of Pan Am's profitable parts was inevitable to the company's destruction. There were not enough pieces to build on".

—Stanley Gerwitz^[60]

[edit] Pan Am: the railroad

A former Maine Central boxcar painted in the new Pan Am Railways livery in 2005

In 1998, Guilford Transportation Industries, a shortline operator of railroad lines assembled from the routes of now defunct railways chiefly in New England, purchased Pan American World Airways and all related naming rights (Pan Am III).^[61] The rights of Pan Am were originally purchased by Eclipse Holdings, Inc. (David Lockwood and Richard Bartel) on December 3, 1993 from the Pan Am I Bankruptcy Court, after which at least the scheduled rights were contracted to be sold to Pan Am (DE) (Charles Cobb, et al.) on December 29, 1993 (Pan Am II).^[62] Eclipse had agreed to retain the Charter rights (Airways Corporation, formerly Pan Am Charters, Inc.).

In the first quarter of 2006, Guilford Transportation Industries officially changed its name to Pan Am Systems.^[63] The rail division of GTI changed its name from Guilford Rail System to Pan Am Railways (PAR).^[64] PAR began repainting locomotives and rolling stock in the sky-blue Pan Am colors shortly thereafter.

Pan Am Systems is privately owned by Timothy Mellon,^[63] an heir to the Mellon banking fortune in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and several other stakeholders.

[edit] Record-setting flights

During the mid-1970s, there were two Pan Am flights operated around the world to set or break previous around-the-world flying records. Liberty Bell Express, a Boeing 747SP-21 named Clipper Liberty Bell with registration number N533PA, broke the commercial plane around-the-world record set by a Flying Tiger Line Boeing 707, with the new record of 46 hours, 50 seconds. The flight left New York-JFK on May 1, 1976, and came back on May 3, 1976. The flight made only two stopovers during the journey, one in New Delhi and the other in Tokyo-Haneda, where a two-hour delay was made because of a strike among the airport workers. Nevertheless, the flight beat the Flying Tiger Line's old record by 16 hours and 24 minutes.^[65]

In order to commemorate Pan Am's 50th birthday, the airline organized yet another around-the-world flight over the North Pole and the South Pole, this time with three stopovers in London-Heathrow, Cape Town and Auckland before going back to its origin—San Francisco. The 747SP-21 used this time, Clipper New Horizons, is actually the former Liberty Bell, making the plane the only one to go around the globe over the Equator (as Liberty Bell) and the Poles (as New Horizons). The flight made it in 54 hours, 7 minutes, and 12 seconds, creating six new world records certified by the FAI. The captain who commanded this flight also commanded the Liberty Bell Express flight.^[66]

[edit] Popular culture

An Orion III, Pan Am's first Space Clipper featured in the science-fiction movie 2001: A Space Odyssey

Pan Am held a lofty position in the popular culture of the Cold War era. One of the most famous images of the company was The Beatles' 1964 arrival at John F. Kennedy Airport aboard a Pan Am Boeing 707-321, Clipper Defiance.^[67][68]

From 1964 to 1968, con artist Frank Abagnale, Jr., masqueraded as a Pan Am pilot, dead-heading to many destinations in the cockpit jump seat. He also used Pan Am's preferred hotels, paid the bills with bogus checks, and later cashed fake payroll checks in Pan Am's name. He documented this stage in the novel Catch Me if You Can, which became a very loosely related movie in 2002. Abagnale called Pan Am the "Ritz-Carlton of airlines" and noted that the days of luxury in airline travel are over.^[69]. On 2002 Steven Spielberg's film Catch Me if You Can based on the story was released, with Leonardo Di Caprio as Frank Abagnale and Tom Hanks as the FBI agent Carl Hanratty.

In the 1960s, Pan Am established a waiting list for future flights to the moon,^[70] issuing free "First Moon Flights Club" membership cards to those who requested them. A fictional Pan Am "Space Clipper,"^[70] a commercial spaceplane called the Orion III, had a prominent role in Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey, featured in the movie's poster. Plastic models of the 2001 Pan Am Space Clipper went on sale by both the Aurora Company and Airfix at the time of the film's release in 1968. A satire of the movie by Mad magazine in 1968 showed Pan Am female flight attendants in "Actionwear by Monsanto" outfits as they joked about the problems their passengers faced while vomiting in zero gravity. The film's sequel, 2010, also featured Pan Am in a background television commercial in the home of David Bowman's widow with the slogan, "At Pan Am, the sky is no longer the limit."^[71]

The airline appeared in other movies, notably in several James Bond films. The company's Boeing 707s were featured in Dr. No, From Russia with Love, while a Pan Am 747 and the Worldport appeared in Live and Let Die.^[72]

A term used in popular psychology is "Pan American (or Pan Am) Smile." Named after the greeting flight attendants (or at least actresses playing flight attendants on TV advertisements) supposedly gave to passengers, it consists of a perfunctory mouth movement without the activity of facial muscles around the eyes that characterizes a genuine smile.^[73]

[edit] Accidents and terrorist events

Pan Am aircraft were involved in 75 notable accidents and other fatal events.^[74] The first occurred on July 16, 1932, when a Ford Trimotor crashed into a mountain in Vitacura, Chile. All nine people on board perished.

One of the accidents that involved a Pan Am plane led to the FAA's ordering the installation of safety devices on aircraft. A Pan Am 707, named the Clipper Tradewind and operating as Flight 214, was in a holding pattern on a flight from Baltimore to Philadelphia when it was last seen going down in flames on December 8, 1963. It was determined that lightning had ignited vapors in the plane's fuel tanks. As a result of the disaster, lightning discharge wicks were installed on all commercial airliners.^[75]

Another Pan Am 747, the Clipper Victor (which was the first Boeing 747 to have a commercially scheduled flight in 1970) was involved in the Tenerife disaster on March 27, 1977, the deadliest accidental disaster in aviation history. The Clipper Victor, operating as a charter flight from Los Angeles to New York and Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, was diverted to Tenerife due to a bomb scare at Las Palmas. A KLM 747 taking off in the mistaken belief they were cleared collided with the Pan Am airplane on the runway. A total of 583 people were killed, 335 of them from the Pan Am airplane. The accident led to reforms including improvements in communications between flight crews and ground control.

Pan Am also experienced a number of notable events that were the result of terrorism. On September 6, 1970, Pan Am Flight 93, a Boeing 707 from Amsterdam to New York, was hijacked as part of the Dawson's Field hijackings. Because of its size, the hijackers diverted the flight to Cairo where, after landing and evacuating the passengers, they detonated explosives on-board and destroyed the aircraft. On December 17, 1973, bombs were thrown by a Palestinian group into Flight 110 (a 707 named the Clipper Celestial) while passengers were boarding in Rome, Italy. The aircraft burned and 30 people were killed. Flight 830 was bombed over the Pacific Ocean on August 11, 1982, killing one passenger before safely landing in Honolulu. A 747 named the Clipper Empress of the Seas, operating as Flight 73, was taken over by hijackers while on a scheduled stop in Karachi, Pakistan, on September 5, 1986. The flight never departed Karachi, but 20 people were killed when the aircraft was stormed on the ground.

[edit] Pan Am Flight 103

Pan Am Flight 103 was Pan Am's third daily scheduled transatlantic flight from London Heathrow Airport to New York's JFK. On December 21, 1988, the aircraft flying this route, a Boeing 747-121 registered N739PA and named Clipper Maid of the Seas, was blown up as it flew over Lockerbie in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, UK, when approximately 1 lb (450 g) of plastic explosive was detonated in its forward cargo hold, triggering a sequence of events that led to the rapid destruction of the aircraft. The aircraft that crashed was the 15th 747 ever built and was delivered to Pan Am in February 1970.

Until the September 11, 2001 attacks, the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 was the deadliest terrorist attack against the United States and it remains the largest terrorist attack on British soil to this day. Totaling 270 fatalities, including 11 in the town of Lockerbie, they came from 21 nations. 180 of the victims were US citizens.

[edit] Fleet

[edit] See also

• Pan Am destinations
• Avensa
• Pan Am Air Bridge (Chalk's International Airlines sold its seaplane operations to a group of investors who operated Chalk's under the Bridge name with Pan Am logos)
• Pan American Airways (1996-1998)
• Pan American Airways (1998-2004)
• Boston-Maine Airways (operated Pan Am Clipper Connection from 2004 to February 2008)
• Pan Am Railways
• Pan Am Systems

[edit] References

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Pan American World Airways

Companies portal

• Pan Am Historical Foundation — Formed to preserve the company's archives and memorabilia
• Pan Am Documentary Home
• TransOceanic Travel & the Pan American Clippers
• An overview of some collectibles and memorabilia
• Historical timetables and route maps
• Fly Pan Am — Website of the company that currently owns the Pan Am trademark, however, no flights operated since 29 February 2008. (unrelated to Pan Am 1927-1991)
• Pan Am discussion forum
• http://www.panamair.org/aircraft/clippernames.htm A complete list of all Clipper Names and all the aircraft upon which the names were used.